Poker Isn’t Broken; It’s Mildly Sprained

There is a widely held belief within the poker community that something has gone horribly awry in recent years. The narrative is the prosperity of the boom years has been squandered. The players, the industry, the media, and everyone in between simply haven’t held up their end of the bargain, and haven’t done their part to insure the game of poker continues to thrive.

It seems hard to argue with this mindset, considering the distinct falloff poker has suffered through since its boom-era peak, when Nevada’s 100+ poker rooms boasted over 900 tables and were pulling in over $160 million a year. In 2015 the total number of poker rooms in Nevada had fallen to 76; poker tables to under 700; and revenue to $118 million. More importantly, poker revenue has declined in seven of the past eight years, and the lone exception was a mere .5% increase in 2013.

The same types of declines (to varying degrees, depending on the market) are also occurring online.

Based on the past 10 or so years, it appears poker is in trouble.

Or is it?

Was it a boom or a bubble?

If you look at the poker boom as the baseline for success than yes, poker is in major trouble, it’s a compound fracture that requires emergency surgery. On the other hand, if you look at the boom as a bubble, an outlier period created by a perfect storm of events, than poker in 2016 looks a whole lot different. Under this lens, poker has a mild sprain that will be cured with a bit of ice and some rest.

Realistically, how wounded the game is largely depends on when you started following the poker industry. If your experience only dates back to 2006 or 2008, poker looks like a lame duck. But if you were around in the late 1990’s, it’s not bad at all. Taking this a step further; if you time travelled a poker player from 1999 to 2016 they would call this period a massive boom, and would be overwhelmed by the interest in the game.

The chart I posted above looks pretty dire, but if we go back a bit further, and if we eliminate the boom years of 2004 through 2011, the numbers tell an entirely different story.

Year

# of Rooms

# of Tables

Total Revenue

% Change YoY

1992

92

564

74,701,000

-2.57

1993

89

571

70,814,000

-5.20

1994

93

586

71,667,000

1.20

1995

92

574

66,520,000

-7.18

1996

82

539

64,485,000

-3.06

1997

77

490

61,509,000

-4.61

1998

76

526

58,873,000

-4.29

1999

70

546

63,244,000

7.41

2000

68

473

63,064,000

-0.28

2001

65

475

59,673,000

-5.38

2002

57

386

57,791,000

-3.15

2003

58

383

68,276,000

18.15

******GAP******

2012

99

809

123,253,000

-6.54

2013

88

774

123,891,000

0.56

2014

79

736

119,904,000

-3.18

2015

76

681

118,023,000

-1.57

What the poker community needs to do

I’m of the opinion that everyone in poker needs to reset their expectations. We need to turn over the Etch-a-Sketch and shake it around a bit and start over.

Instead of trying to recreate the boom, poker players and the poker industry should be trying to build on the gains they’ve made over the past 25 years. The game is going strong. Ignoring the boom period, poker is stronger than it has been in any other period in its near-200 year history.

The trend from 1992 – 2015 is clearly one of upward growth.

This isn’t to say another boom period couldn’t occur, it very well could. But problems arise when you try to force it to happen, instead of just letting it happen naturally, as is usually the case with such things.

At some point there will be another convergence of innovation, economic factors, and popular culture that send poker soaring back into the stratosphere. But, it’s impossible to create this environment (otherwise everyone in every industry would do so), what we need to do is be prepared for when it happens, and we do that by making pragmatic improvements where we can, ensuring the game survives to experience another boom.

Basically, instead of trying to invent some magic pill that will allow poker to suddenly go from here to here:

It’s Important To Gamble Responsibly

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